Valid & Invalid transactions

Q: Is forex trading halaal or haraam? While I use an interest free account, I use a swipe free and no commission account. My broker says its 100% according to Islamic Shariah. Kindly tell me about it in detail.

Q: I am a shopkeeper who sells general merchandise.

Sometimes, people come to my store and want to use their debit card to draw money from my card machine. They will swipe their card in the machine, enter the amount that they want, and thereafter I will take the corresponding amount of cash from my till and give it to them while their bank deposits that amount in my account.

Can I charge them for this service? In other words, can I tell the customer to enter R205 into the machine while I give him R200 in cash? I will make R5 on the service of giving him the cash. Is this permissible?

Q: I own a manufacturing business where I take orders from customers and manufacture according to their specification. Once their order is prepared, they are notified and given a ten day period to collect the item from our warehouse.

The problem is that many customers delay in collecting their orders. This causes a problem for us as the uncollected orders take up space in the warehouse. In order to avoid this problem, we want to stipulate, at the time the order is placed, that if goods are not collected within ten days, then a stipulated storage fee will be charged for every day thereafter. Is this permissible in Shari’ah?

Q: I enhanced a software related to point of sale. The owner sells it in UAE and I live in Pakistan. Can I sell the software in Pakistan without the owner's permission?

Q: My mom does a private catering business from home and sells food from our house to the customers. Recently a food organisation has contacted my mom for her to sell weekly food to them so they can serve their customers this food. Is this allowed in Islam? Because the customers of that organisation don’t know who makes the food (if the organisation makes it or someone else) My mom is saying that it doesn’t matter where the food comes from because when you go to a restaurant no customer asks who cooks the food and where it comes from?

Q: Can you work for a shop which shows their clients samples of blinds and thereafter they acquire it for them? I don't think the shop owners understand that it is not permissible for one to sell something which one does not possess.

Q: I would like to know if a restraint of trade agreement is permissible in an Islamic sale.

Example: I am selling my cellphone business to Zaid. In the sale agreement a clause is added that I, the seller, is not allowed to trade in the same field of business for a stipulated period (e.g. 5 years). Will such a clause be permissible? If not will the adding of such a clause nullify the entire sale? Or will the clause be impermissible and the rest of the sale be correct?

Q: I urgently need to know something before I fall into haraam dealings. Please tell me if my method of charging commission is permissible:

I have an online store where people can advertise their things on my website and I charge them on each successful transaction, so if something was sold for R100.00 I would charge R1.00 (1%)

According to the Hanafi mazhab we are allowed to take percentage based commissions from customers, I have collected numerous fataawaa on this Alhamdulillah. What I need to know is whether I can tell my customers this:

We charge 3% for any sales under R1 000, 2% for sales under R5 000 and %1 for sales under R10 000

Although no ambiguity remains and both I and the client knows how much will be charged at the end of the sale, I just need confirmation if is this permissible. See the case scenario below:

Sometimes the client will have something like "negotiable price" on his advert, so he would either sell it for R900 or R1 000 for example. Since I charge him 3% for sales under R1 000 and 2% for sales between R1 000 - R5 000, is this considered as ambiguity or is it permissible?

Another scenario:

Someone advertises an auction on my website. The price of the auction could be won at anything from R1 to R2 000 or more. Can I charge a fixed 3% on all auction listings so that no ambiguity remains as to what the seller will pay me? So that if the sale goes for R1 then I will get R0.03 and if it goes for R2 000 I will get R60

I am very cautious of falling into haraam activity and this is my income so I need it to be clean.

Q: Whenever I buy something from outside of the UK with my debit card, my bank takes a purchase/transaction fee. I dont mind this. Is this allowed?

Q: I work at a sales position in a company. Is it halal for me to pass on a lead I got from a connection, to some other supplier which I cannot fulfil from my company and receive commission from that supplier when the deal is done.